Flat touch-and-close fastener element and cleaning system comprising such a flat touch-and-close fastener element

ABSTRACT

A flat touch-and-close fastener element, which is detachably connected to a second touch-and-close fastener element, thereby forming a touch-and-close closure, and which consists of a system of threads ( 10 ) comprising at least warp and weft threads as well as pile threads, is characterized in that the individual threads have different chemical and/or physical properties and, for this purpose, consist of different materials.

The invention relates to a flat touch-and-close fastener element which in particular is detachably connected to another touch-and-close fastener element to form a releasable touch-and-close fastener, and that consists of a thread system having at least warp and weft threads as well as pile threads. Such a touch-and-close fastener element for a touch-and-close fastener element is known from patent DE 102 40 986 B3.

Woven touch-and-close fastener elements whose warp, weft and pile threads are all made of textile fibers but which can also consist of plastic or metal fibers are freely available on the market in numerous designs. The pile threads in the ground fabric formed of warp and weft threads consist of loop-shaped hook elements. Said threads of the thread system can consist of multifilament threads or multifilament yarns and if, in particular, the pile threads are formed from monofilament threads or monofilament yarns, the relevant closed pile thread loops can be cut or thermally separated from each other to thus obtain resilient locking hooks that can be releasably engaged with a correspondingly designed fleece loop material of the other touch-and-close fastener element.

If the loop ends are thermally treated, for example melted, in the cutting process, mushroom-like fastening heads arise during subsequent hardening as fastening elements from the inherent tension behavior of the melted plastic material. Furthermore, it is also possible to releasably engage with each other such hook or mushroom-shaped fastening elements with felt-like touch-and-close fastener elements and form the touch-and-close fastener as a whole.

With such known touch-and-close fastener systems, very favorable pealing resistance values are achievable, i.e., relatively high force is required to cause the flat, corresponding touch-and-close fastener elements that form the touch-and-close fastener as a whole to release the connection, which is always desirable.

With the known solutions, plastic materials, in particular in the form of nylon or polypropylene material, are also used as the thread and yarn systems, in addition to textile fiber materials. Furthermore, the use of metal thread systems has also been proposed for the known solution. It is always the case, however, that only one production material is consistently used for the entire thread system for each known fastening material.

It was revealed in practice that when using the known thread or yarn material consisting of one production material, a highly favorable basic stability for the entire fabric is achieved, and in particular, the pile threads cannot be easily removed from the ground fabric by a corresponding hook fastening material when the touch-and-close fastener is pulled apart which, viewed over the long term, would undesirably impair the functioning of the touch-and-close fastener; however, if only such stable thread systems are used, it was revealed that they lose their ability to fasten or close from frequent washing, in particular when high temperatures are used for the washing medium for reasons of disinfection or sterilization, and the employed cleanser frequently also proves to be very aggressive toward the thread system of the employed textile and plastic materials.

The invention furthermore relates to a cleaning system using such a flat touch-and-close fastener element, wherein said cleaning systems are also colloquially termed mops. If such mop cleaning systems are for example used in hospitals, increased disinfection and sterility requirements accordingly exist. The flat wiping material used for the cleaning system, which is provided on the back side with the flat touch-and-close fastener element to be connected to a hand-actuatable holder with a corresponding touch-and-close fastener element, wherein the holder is preferably movable along a floor surface to be cleaned by means of a handle part, is supposed to be able to withstand at least 500 washing cycles in daily washings over the anticipated life. Furthermore, the touch-and-close fastener element used in such cleaning systems, which is designed to be correspondingly robust for use, is supposed to be able to effectively withstand normal abrasion or fabric delamination.

The known touch-and-close fastener systems with the assignable cleaning systems only insufficiently satisfy these requirements, which is regularly reflected by a short life of the products.

Based on this prior art, the underlying objective of the invention is to further improve the known flat touch-and-close fastener elements, in addition to assignable cleaning systems using such touch-and-close fastener elements, so that they prove robust and enduring when used and, in particular, can survive numerous cleaning processes without delamination of the thread fabric system occurring. A flat touch-and-close fastener element achieves such an objective with the features of claim 1 as well as a cleaning system using such a touch-and-close fastener element according to the embodiment of the feature of claim 11.

To achieve this objective with a flat touch-and-close fastener element, according to the invention, the individual threads of the thread system have different chemical and physical properties, and for this purpose consist of different materials, in particular in the form of plastic materials. It is particularly preferable for at least part of the threads to consist of polyamide material, and another part of the threads to consist of polyester material.

In terms of its surface structure, the addressed polyamide thread is considered relatively rough on the microscopic level and therefore offers a favorable receptive base for finishes which are regularly used to help improve the cohesion within the ground fabric system consisting of warp and weft fibers. However, the plastic material, polyamide, is considered highly hydrophilic; in particular, polyamide likes to swell upon the infiltration of water and becomes softer in terms of the strength values with the consequence that the stability of the thread system decreases upon the infiltration of water, so that a thread system constructed exclusively of polyamide materials for the touch-and-close fastener element is less suitable for frequent washing cycles viewed over the long term. If disinfectants and sterilizing agents, which normally are highly oxidizing such as perchlorate and peracetic acids, are used together with the wash water, the resistance of the polyamide proves to be low since the molecular structure of polyamide normally has so-called amino end groups which produce end products with the cited disinfectants and sterilizing agents in a chemically reactive manner and break down the polyamide in the thread system.

In contrast, polyester as the plastic thread material with a normally smooth surface structure proves to be a hydrophobic added fabric material which, in addition, does not have any functional amino groups, and frequent washing using disinfectants and sterilizing agents therefore cannot harm the polyester thread material. In particular, chemical decomposition compounds do not arise because the polyester does not have any functional groups, in particular amino end groups, in the molecular structure. Given the smooth surface structure of the polyester thread material, physical adhesion of the aforementioned finish material does not occur, and it only mechanically encloses the respective polyester fiber and can easily release from the fiber under mechanical stress.

It is surprising to the average person skilled in the art of touch-and-close fasteners that he can freely adjust the functional properties of the touch-and-close fastener element, or respectively the touch-and-close fastener material, within wide ranges by selectively choosing thread or yarn material for partial thread systems of an overall thread system. Furthermore, by additionally or alternatively introducing electrically conductive fiber material such as in the form of carbon fibers, the static discharge of the touch-and-close fastener element can be improved. If metal threads with a specifiable electrical resistance are introduced into the overall thread composite system, the touch-and-close fastener material can be heated by connecting the metal threads to a corresponding electricity source. Such an addition of heat can serve to kill microorganisms in the fastener material of the touch-and-close fastener element so that in this context as well, maximum disinfection and sterilization requirements can be easily satisfied.

It has proven to be particularly advantageous, in particular when using the flat touch-and-close fastener element according to the invention in a so-called mop, to form the weft threads of the thread system which extend over a long thread path as so-called long weft threads from polyamide, and the contrastingly shorter partial weft threads from polyester. Furthermore, it has proven to be advantageous to form 50% of the pile threads used within the thread system from polyester, and the other 50% part from polyamide threads or yarns. Of course, other percentage compositions can also be used, such as 40% polyamide to 60% polyester within the thread composite system.

For the ground fabric consisting of the warp and weft threads, the conventional fabric interconnections can be used, as well as knitted material. It is however particularly preferable for the thread system to be Raschel knit, wherein Raschel knitting on a Raschel machine is a type of known warp knitting. Further information on Raschel machines can for example be found in the “Groβe Textil-Lexikon”, published by Deutsche Verlagsanstalt Stuttgart, as well as the introductory manual “Textile Fertigungsverfahren”, published by Hanser-Verlag Munich.

For an improved attachment of the individual threads or individual yarns, the thread system is provided with a finish on its side facing away from the pile threads, i.e. on its rear side. As the finish, a solvent-free, moisture-cured hot melt adhesive based on reactive polyurethane prepolymers can for example be used that contains at least one polyester polyol at a concentration between 10 and 90%, possibly polyether polyol at a concentration of 0 to 50%, as well as at least one polyisocyanate at a concentration by weight between 5 and 35%. Using such a polyurethane material causes the individual weave components to strongly adhere to each other in the thread system so that a pulling out of individual threads, especially the pile threads in the basic texture, is reliably suppressed.

In the following, the touch-and-close fastener element according to the invention along with its use in a cleaning system will be further explained with reference to an exemplary embodiment according to the drawing. The following are shown in a basic, not-to-scale representation:

FIG. 1 shows a rectangular, perspective section of a part of a flat touch-and-close fastener element according to the invention without finish;

FIG. 2 for the sake of clarity shows a section from the thread system according to FIG. 1, only with one warp thread and four partial weft threads which are positioned by the warp threads in their weft direction, wherein the associated pattern repeats after four partial weft threads;

FIG. 3 shows a partial thread system from the representation according to FIG. 1 with two warp threads that are only partially shown, one partial weft thread, as well as an incorporated pile thread in the warp thread on the right in the perspective facing FIG. 3;

FIG. 4 shows a plan view of the partial section of a thread system according to FIG. 1, wherein at least the pile threads consist of so-called multifilament threads or yarns;

FIG. 5 shows, as an exploded view, the wiping means arranged at the very bottom which can be connected via a touch-and-close fastener to the holder portrayed at the very top;

FIG. 6 shows an enlarged partial section of the holder according to FIG. 5 which is enclosed there by a circle X; and

FIG. 7 shows a longitudinal section along line Y-Y in FIG. 6.

As mentioned above, FIG. 1 shows a rectangular, perspective section of a part of a flat touch-and-close fastener element according to the invention without an applied finish. The relevant flat touch-and-close fastener element can be connected to another touch-and-close fastener element in a releasable manner, in particular while forming a touch-and-close fastener, which will be further explained below with reference to a cleaning system. The touch-and-close fastener element has a thread system designated as a whole by 10, consisting of warp threads 12 which, in the perspective facing FIG. 1, extend in a vertical direction, and consisting of weft threads 14 which contrastingly run in a horizontal direction and extend in the form of pile threads 16 in the basic weave system consisting of the warp threads and weft threads 12, 14.

Long weft threads 18 extend within the thread system 10 over a longer thread path and preferably extend over the entire length or width of the entire thread system. In addition to these long weft threads 18 which, when viewed in the perspective facing toward FIG. 1, are arranged in a vertical direction in equidistant distances to each other, four partial weft threads 20, 22, 24 and 26 run parallel to the long weft threads 18, wherein the pattern viewed in the weft direction, repeats with the incorporation of the first partial weft thread 20 and each additional partial weft thread 22, 24, 26. For a better view, the relevant structure is depicted in FIG. 2, wherein the individual partial weft threads are depicted with different outlines next to the warp thread 12. The warp thread 12, which runs vertically in the perspective facing FIG. 2, forms a multi-loop system and penetrates the four partial weft threads 20, 22, 24, 26 between the neighboring loops of the warp thread 12 while incorporating the relevant warp thread 12. Starting at the fourth partial weft thread 26, the pattern repeat repeats beginning with the first partial weft thread 20 and, as shown on the right in the perspective facing FIG. 2, terminates with the fourth partial weft thread 26. Preferably according to the representation in FIG. 1, an independent warp thread system 12 exists for each partial weft thread.

In particular according to the representation in FIG. 3, the double incorporation is shown therein between two neighboring warp threads 12 for one of the partial weft threads 20. Furthermore, FIG. 3 shows the incorporation of a loop-forming pile thread 16 in the right warp thread system 12. If the weave structure according to FIGS. 2 and 3 is combined in an obvious manner, the overall pattern results according to the representation in FIG. 1.

In order to achieve different functions for the thread system, the warp threads 12 all consist of polyester material, and one part of the pile threads 16 consists of polyamide, and the other, preferably half, part of the pile threads 16 consist of polyester. Furthermore, the long floating long weft threads 18 that extend over the entire weave are made of polyamide plastic material, whereas the partial weft threads 20, 22, 24, 26 preferably consist of polyester or have such polyester materials. Other material combinations are used depending on the context in which the addressed function of the individual components is to be adjusted.

In a particularly preferred embodiment of the touch-and-close fastener element according to the invention, as FIG. 4 furthermore shows, at least the pile threads 16 consist of so-called multifilament threads, i.e., an individual thread or individual yarn is divided into a plurality of individual filaments which all form a loop shape and are particularly suitable for interacting with a corresponding fastening material, such as in the form of fastening hooks for a releasable touch-and-close fastener. Accordingly in the representation in FIG. 4, both the warp thread systems 12 as well as the weft thread systems 14 with the long warp threads 18 as well as the partial weft threads 20 or 22, 24 and 26 are designed as monofilament threads. In one embodiment (not shown), it is however also possible to also incorporate the relevant warp and weft threads 12, 14 as multifilament threads in the weave for additionally improved adhesion.

The touch-and-close fastener elements shown as examples in FIGS. 1 and 4 with their woven or knit structure can be produced on so-called Raschel machines (not shown) which are generically considered so-called warp knitting looms. Such Raschel machines normally have two rows of latch needles and six rows of guide needles, where both the hook needles as well as the guide needles are integrally held, in particular combined in the form of so-called needle bars or guide bars. A nonmoving knock over comb which on the upper end possesses comb-like milled slots for the needle passage assumes the functions of ADVANCE, APPLY and KNOCK OVER by a movement relative to the needle bar. The threads are then combined into the warps, in particular as warp beams or section warp beams on Raschel machines. The threads are then fed to the needles through the guide bars, wherein the warp beams are driven separately. The Raschel fabric produced in this manner is then pulled off in the bottom part of the machine frame by a pull-off device and provided for subsequent use (see “Groβes Textillexikon”, Deutsche Verlagsanstalt Stuttgart).

In order to ensure the weave according to the representations in FIGS. 1 and 4 between the individual threads of the overall thread system 10, they are provided with a finish on the side opposite the pile threads 16, preferably in the form of a polyurethane material applied to the whole surface. In addition to the presented threads, other threads can also be used with in particular a linear configuration which are flame retarding, and/or electrically conductive, and/or thermally conductive, and/or strength-value increasing. In addition to metal threads, nylon or carbon threads can also be used, or thread systems coated with flame retarding means. A part of the described partial weft threads can accordingly be replaced by such a different thread. The use of so-called bicomponent fibers in the overall thread structure 10 is also conceivable in principle.

FIG. 5 shows the use of the touch-and-close fastener element according to the invention in a cleaning system, in particular in the form of a mop, in which a flat wiping material 30 including a plurality of wiping loops 32, for example consisting of a cotton material, is provided on the rear side 34 with the thread system 10, in particular sewn to the rear side along longitudinal and transverse seams 36 and 38. In order to represent both the front side and rear side of the wiping material in the form of the wiping means, the front side of the wiping material is represented on the left half of the image in FIG. 5, and the rear side is represented folded over on the right side. The thread system portrayed as an example in FIG. 4 is then on the right side of the image in FIG. 5 facing the viewer and is able to engage with two hook and loop strips 40 which extend along the bottom side of a holder 42 from the one side 44 of the holder to its other side 46 while correspondingly forming a releasable touch-and-close fastener. The holder 42 is preferably produced from an aluminum or plastic profile material, wherein the individual hook and loop strip 40 with the projecting hook material 48 as an additional fastener element 50 can be pulled off of the holder 42 in the manner of a hollow profile 52 (see FIG. 7) so that it can be easily exchanged from the holder in case of failure, and/or can be easily washed or otherwise cleaned using the removable hollow profile 52. In particular, the holder 42 can be reused immediately when the respective hollow-profile 52 is exchanged. On its top side, the holder 42 is provided with a handle part 54, wherein in the depicted embodiment, such a holder 42 with a handle part 54 can for example be used to clean window or working surfaces. If the handle part 54 on the holder 42 is correspondingly extended (not shown), such a cleaning system can also easily be used to clean floors of any kind in addition to their floor coverings. If the wiping material 30 is used or dirty, the relevant wiping material or wiping means 30 can be exchanged for a new part using the portrayed Klett® connection system. The used or dirty wiping material 30 can then be washed and preferably reused in a disinfected form for additional cleaning processes as a part of the described cleaning system with a holder 42. 

1. A flat touch-and-close fastener element which in particular is connected to another touch-and-close fastener element to form a releasable touch-and-close fastener, and that consists of a thread system (10) having at least warp and weft threads (12; 14) as well as pile threads (16), characterized in that the individual threads (12, 14, 16) of the thread system have different chemical and/or physical properties, and for this purpose consist of different materials.
 2. The touch-and-close fastener element according to claim 1, characterized in that least one part of the threads (12, 14, 16) consists of polyamide or polyester.
 3. The touch-and-close fastener element according to claim 1, characterized in that the warp threads (12) consist of polyester, and at least part of the weft threads (18) as well at least part of the pile threads (16) consist of polyamide.
 4. The touch-and-close fastener element according to claim 1, characterized in that the weft threads that extend over a long thread path as long weft threads (18) within the thread system consist of polyamide, and the contrastingly shorter partial weft threads (20, 22, 24, 26) are formed from polyester, or primarily have such plastic materials.
 5. The touch-and-close fastener element according to claim 1, characterized in that part of the pile threads (16) that are used consists of polyester, and another part consists of polyamide.
 6. The touch-and-close fastener element according to claim 1, characterized in that a partial weft fiber (20, 22, 24, 26) is incorporated within the weave of the thread system for each warp thread course as well as two pile threads (16), and after four warp thread courses (12), the weave pattern restarts beginning with a first partial weft thread (20).
 7. The touch-and-close fastener element according to claim 1, characterized in that all the threads (12, 14, 16) of the thread system are made of multifilaments.
 8. The touch-and-close fastener element according to claim 1, characterized in that the thread system (10) is produced on a Raschel machine.
 9. The touch-and-close fastener element according to claim 1, characterized in that the thread system (10) is provided with a finish, preferably including polyurethane material, on its side facing away from the pile threads.
 10. The touch-and-close fastener element according to claim 1, characterized in that the thread system (10) has linear elements that are flame retarding, and/or electrically conductive, and/or thermally conductive, and/or strength value increasing, in addition to the existing threads, or at least as a partial replacement therefor.
 11. A cleaning system, in particular such as a mop, wherein a flat wiping material (30) which is provided on its back side with the touch-and-close fastener element according to claim 1, is releasably connected to a hook material (48) as another touch-and-close fastener element which is part of a manually actuatable holder (42) which preferably can be moved by a handle part (54) along a floor surface to be cleaned. 